Sunday, August 14, 2005

La Braceria

Keeping in line with the Florentine-styled cuisine here, your meal begins with a serving a crusty but airy slices of bread with a dish of fruity and nutty aromatic olive oil and an island of balsamic vinegar nestling within. The restaurant is a charming little shop which sits only about 25 people, is well lit by the daylight and is a rather peaceful stop for a nice lunch, where you can sit in the air-conditioned rooms and enjoy the simple grassy scene outside.

The food here is Florentine inspired, the pièce de rèsistance of Florentine cuisine - Bistecca alla Florentina ( steak Florentine ) is on the menu along side other char grilled items such as grilled chicken with parmesan cheese, lamb chops and kobe beef. Other dishes that this restaurant features are tripe, their homemade pork sausages and their wood fire pizzas.salsicci de maiale al finocchietto

Nosh: From the Antipasti e Insalate section of the menu, we had the Trippa alla Fiorentina which is stewed veal tripe in light tomato sauce and the Antipasto Braceria which is oven baked scamorza cheese served with a delicious mushroom sauce. The tripe is very simply prepared and is served very unpretentious manner. The first bite will first give you the chewy texture of the tripe and the taste of tripe but after a few chews, the light tomato sauce give it’s a more neutral taste and then the taste start to harmonise together in your mouth. The Antipasto Braceria highlighted the slight sweet and gooey texture of the grilled cheese with the piece of bacon that was wrapped around it that was grilled to a crisp. The aroma of the bacon is more prevalent when you smell your food and so if you have this I advice you to sniff it before eating it, I know it is bad table manners, but it is a better way of appreciating your food.

Moving on to the meat section of the meal, we had the salsicci de maiale al finocchietto which is their famous homemade grilled pork sausage. Served with some salad and pan fried potatoes, the sausage is quite a roll of tasty meat. The predominant flavour in the sausages is the wine that it is flavoured with, which makes it a rather full bodied and herby meaty chunk to enjoy with the salad and the potatoes.

The fire wood pizza that we selected was the alla bracieria pizza was crisp and crunchy with mozerella, beef tenderloin, porcini mushroom and parmesan cheese. Nothing too spectacular, but it was rather cool having slices of beef on the pizza.

We proceeded on to dessert where we ordered the lava cake and the tiramisu from the choice of the chef’s dessert of the day, an Italian cheese plate and profiteroles. The tiramisu was delightful, the ladysfingers were laced with and not soggy from the alcoholic liquid that it was soaked in, and the marscapone was airy and light. The lava cake came with a little show of its own, the waiter comes by with a bottle of grand mariner and pours a couple of tablespoons into it and lights it on fire. The lava cake is a chocolate affair with molten chocolate in the center, which is a rather luxurious dessert to have.

Pay: S$50-S$60 for 3 courses per person

Service: It was a little tardy since there was only one waiter in the restaurant and hence our water glasses were constantly left unfilled.

oh my god! they use their hands! how disgusting! I don't when people started this craze of not using hands, but it is just ridiculous. We still go to food courts don't we? and even if they were wearing gloves, we would not know what they are doing with the gloves would we?